Warez - What's a developer to do?

[Malmer]

[Ieg]

[Dan East]

[Malmer]

[Ieg]

[Ieg]

[Malmer]

[fzammetti]

[Malmer]

[Spam]

[Malmer]

[fzammetti]

[Chris Edwards]

[SM[214]]

Spam - Calm down, anger just makes our side look bad.

Ieg - They are right, 'l33t' spelling does not help when we want to have a serious discussion with them.

fzammetti - You keep bringing up thelft of expensive, tangeable products. There is a serious flaw in this comparison, copying software does not reduce the value of the asset. Yes, people stealing software are robbing you, but it is profits they are stealing, not investments. A fine line: yes, still illegal: yes, still frustrating for you: yes, but does it reduce the number of products you have available for paying customers: no. There is an expense of your time and hard work developing, and the loss of profits due to theft, but pleae stop comparing it to theft of a material product with a limited production, you just make yourself look foolish.

Malmer - I believe you released Argentum on 5/7, it first appeared on the IRC chanels on 5/9. We were able to keep it out of the Spam comunity for just over a week (around 5/15). There was a 4 page thread encoraging newbies to honor this decision, and we did have to warn one or two FTP admins to remove it from their site.

Dan East - For you to have access to the thread where FTP admins speak to each other, that ether means you are a Moderator on spams (doubtfull), or you are running a warez FTP (giving away everyone elses software for free?) I'll let you explain to the other developers here why you think it is ok to be self-rightous here but the go and stab them in the back. At least we don't lie to them and say we aren't doing it...

Chris Edwards - About us limiting the access to forums and FTP's, it's real simple. Spam's is a community, whether you believe it or not, that does not focus on Warez, we just our members to discuss it on the forums. There is nothing illegal going on at Spams, we don't host any software, we delete any posts that have serials or unlock codes in them, and we encorage all the members to purchase their software. Because of our community focus, we got tired of all the 'l33t pir8's' (meaning scriptkiddies) comming onto the boards and begging for software all the time, clogging up the FTP servers as the try to leach everything (tell me, who honestly needs miniture golf for all three processors?!?!?) and buging the regulars for help all the time.

Like I already said, the problem here is you perception of who or what we are. Spam's is not a Cracking or Warez group, if you are looking for them I doubt they will be posting a responce. Spam's is neutral ground, where everyone can come and discus things - as long as they are there to discus, we'll kick a developer for attacking everyone just as fast as we kick the pirates for leaching. Someone compaired it to a western saloon, I think a better view would be a Brookland church, neutral ground where both parties are monitored, but hostile action is not allowed. (ok fzammetti - I'm waiting for you to flame me for blasphamy)

[fzammetti]

Nope, I won't flame you. Your response was rational, that's all I ever ask during a discussion. I don't agree with you, but as long as we're not exchanging personal attacks, I'm cool with it.

I'll try and address your points:

(1) You say that there is a difference between theft of tangible objects and of something like software because it does not reduce the value of the asset. I disagree. If I consider the value of my software asset to be the total amount of income I would have over the life of the asset, and if we all agree (and I don't think this was ever in dispute) that piracy does in fact result in some measurable lessening of the amount of income I see, then in fact the value of the asset has definitely been reduced. The difference is that yes, stealing a single item means I can no longer benefit financially from that item whereas pirating a piece of software doesn't mean I can't continue to sell it. That argument I think stands. But the amount of income I will realize for any given product is diminished by piracy (to what degree is arguable), and therefore a theft has occurred. The fact that it is a theft of potential profits and not realized profits doesn't make a difference, it's only a question of degrees.

(2) Let me ask this question: you say you had to warn some newbies against posting Argentum... what recourse do you have if they do not honor your request? Will you flame them on a message board? You see, this agreement idea is even crazier when you realize that you guys don't have any power to actually enforce the agreement. So what if you tell someone not to post something, or even ban them? You and I both know they will create a new account and go do it anyway if they want to. As you said yourself, you have no control over what goes on in IRC. This agreement has no teeth, making it even that much more useless to a developer.

(3) This "community" idea blows me away too. I remember reading about a "community" of safe crackers many years ago. They all got together every so often and shared information on how to crack the newest models, where to get the schematics they would need, where to get specialized tools, etc. They didn't get together and actually DO anything illegal, they just shared information. The problem is, the information they shared arguably only had one purpose: to perform an illegal act. I guess if your going to argue that a community is a group of people getting together to discuss common ideas, then yes, you have a community there. But community has more meaning than that.

Community means a group of people working together for the benefit of the group. Even in THAT sense, yes, you have a community becuase obviously it's beneficial to you guys to tell each other how and where to get more pirated software. The problem is when you try and bring US, the DEVELOPERS, into the community. Your community does not benefit us, no matter how many times you or anyone else tries to convince us it does.

I've been on Spam's site, I've seen what goes on there. I absolutely agree, it's not all about getting pirated software, there is more going on there. But that doesn't change the fact that it and sites like it encourage the exchange of information, in whole or part, that can arguably only serve one purpose: to pirate software.

Before anyone jumps on me and says I'm anti-free-speech or something, let me make this clear: I DO NOT want to see Spam or any other site closed down because they are sharing information that helps do something illegal. I would fight tooth and nail to keep Spam or such sites from going down, just like sites that teach me how to make explosives I DO NOT want to see taken down. Ideas and information should always be protected, but actions should not always be. What bothers me is people trying to rationalize it into something it's not.

(Blasphamy? Where did that come from? I'm not even remotely religious, a church crack isn't going to bother me)